True Love-Chp. 1-Preface

-This is my first fic, so I hope it turns out all right. Femmeslash, a little AU, I guess. Bella/Rosalie, eventually. The first chapter is really short, but...just testing the water out here. Anyways, thanks!

He carried her bags in for her.

"Oh, this is great! I love it!"

"I'm glad, Bella." He raised his eyebrows, like he always did just before telling a joke. "Because the real estate market isn't exactly booming in Forks, Washington." She stared at him for a couple seconds.

"That joke was terrible."

"You just don't know greatness when you see it."

"Oh, come off it, Michael."

"As you wish." And with that he was gone, probably putting the bags upstairs. When she blinked, he was back again. "Not exactly the Ritz, but I suppose it will do."

"You'll only have to stand it for a year," she muttered, downcast.

"Let's not talk of that."

"As you wish," she repeated, brightening up a bit, and running upstairs. She tripped on the third step up (it was crooked, she insisted), but Michael caught her, as he always did.

Isabella Swan had arrived in Forks. She had been born there, and wanted to spend her last year of high school there. She supposed it merited the title of home more than any other location she had lived in for the past seventeen years, though it was a imperfect, unfamiliar kind of home, full of memories she wasn't sure she wanted to reacquaint herself with. School started tomorrow. She wasn't sure she was ready for Forks High. But then again, she never felt ready, she thought, paging through a novel. She noticed with amusement she had just read the same paragraph three times without catching any of it. A knock was heard, her door swung open.

"Would you like anything to eat, Bella?"

"No, not really in the mood. Thank you though." She paused "Then again, I think we might still have some chilled O negative in the fridge..."

"Very funny," he said, but his lips curled up into a smile. Another thing she appreciated about Michael-he laughed without fail at her jokes, even the God-awful ones. She owed him more than she could easily explain-he had been her constant companion in a transient adolescence, her one constant since she was very young. He was her friend. She knew how other's feared him-she knew what he had been before he had been forced to chaperone her all around the globe-she knew that he was a very powerful vampire. A very old vampire. She also trusted him with her life. She knew, just like she had known when she was seven, that he wouldn't hurt her.

He was beautiful, undoubtedly, all lips and eyes and cheekbones. His hair was so blonde it was nearly white, nearly as white as his skin, and it fell in loose curls around his face. He looked very young, almost innocent, until you saw the eyes. He was neither. She knew he loved her-he had made it clear. She had tried, it once-with him, to see if she more-than-cared for him, if she loved him the way he did her. She liked it but didn't like the morning after and from then on he stored away his love for her, though sometimes she would see it flash out of his eyes when he couldn't help it.

Bella finished reading her novel, and fell asleep with it clutched to her chest. She always felt a little nervous at a new school, but that night even more so then usual. She couldn't shake the feeling that something very important was going to happen the next day.